A discussion about the important difference between a riot and an insurrection, and the cause of the insurrections and riots in general and more specifically the cause of the insurrection of 5 June 1832.

6 (blows of a stone): Lapidation de Môtiers (1765) d'où Rousseau, restant en Suisse cependant, gagna l'île Saint-Pierre.Stoning of Môtiers (1765) from where Roussau, staying in Switzerland nevertheless, reached Île Saint-Pierre. [The French wiki covers it – after an argument with the local pastor, someone started throwing rocks at Rousseau's house, so he decamped to Île Saint-Pierre two days later.]

14 (one of Napoleon's marshals in petto): Sont in petto les cardinaux dont le pape a décidé la nomination, mais ne l'a pas publiée.“In petto” describes the state of the cardinals of whom the pope has decided, but not published, their nomination.

Chapitre 421 (lay in the rue de la Perle): Chose vue par Hugo, mais lors de l'insurrection de mai 1839 dont les événements, observés de près, sont souvent transposés ici. << Dans une maison en construction, rue des Cultures-Saint-Gervais, les maçons ont repris leurs travaux. On vient de tuer un homme rue de la Perle. >> (Choses vues, ouv. Cit., 1830-1846, p. 172.)Event witnessed by Hugo, but during the May 1839 insurrection of which the events, observed close up, are often transposed here. “In a house under construction, rue des Cultures-Saint-Gervais, the masons have returned to their work. A man was just killed in the rue de la Perle.” (Things Seen, op. Cit., 1830-1846, p. 172.) [This address is in the Marais; the street is also known as rue des Coutures-Saint-Gervais.]

Chapter 1Philinte against Alceste: Characters in Molière's Misanthrope. Alceste is the title character; Philinte is his friend who keeps telling him “don't be a dick”. As wikipedia says, “Philinte represents a foil for Alceste's moral extremism, and speaks throughout the first act of the play on the necessity of self-censorship and polite flattery to smooth over the rougher textures of a complex society. Alceste, on the other hand, believes that people should be completely honest and should not put on pretenses just to be considered polite in society.” Hugo in this paragraph is characterising the required papering over of differences for the working of society as “the party of tepid water”, something best described by what it is not because it isn't really anything at all.

“The establishment of Philip V in Spain” - Philip V was the first Bourbon king of Spain, and he inherited the throne according to the previous King's will. This was disputed by the third in line according to the will, the Austrian Archduke Charles, on the premise that Philip's grandmother, which was the blood connection that led to his naming as an heir to the throne, had in her marriage contract given up any right of succession to the Spanish throne for her descendants. The War of Spanish Succession is what Hugo is referencing in the 2 billion franc cost.

Obviously, Hugo prefers tearing down kings to setting them up on foreign thrones, but he is also making the point that revolutions, so long as they are not contested by outsiders, are cheap compared to wars. Though the War of Spanish Succession is such a complete mess with countries taking the opportunity to piss each other off over other issues at the same time, it's hard to say this was really fought to put Philip on the throne he had inherited.

Chapter 2I think we can just start paraphrasing Ben Franklin to summarise this chapter. “Rebellion is always legal in the first person: our rebellion. Only in the third person, their rebellion, does it become illegal.” The actions Hugo praises as right are still factions, because “the whole” doesn't actually exist. There is no public opinion at this time that actually incorporates the vast majority of the French public, the peasantry. Once they started being given an actual vote and therefore an actual voice, the conservatives got an easier leg up. Not because the peasantry was ignorant, but because they were scared. All change had been bad for them in their experience, so of course people who are tied to weather and landlords are going to choose what they see as stability whenever possible. The weather can't be stable and predictable, so the landlord ought to be. But this is entirely of a piece with Marx setting the peasantry aside as unimportant to the revolution. Hugo's examples swing into “yeah, there's a majority in all these cases I cite, but they're wrong, so they're a faction and don't really count.” It's all just “the things I like are rebellion in the first person; if I don't like it, it's rebellion in the third person.” Drives me nuts.

Phocion – Phocion was accused of treachery and ordered to be tried by the people of Athens, who then sentenced him to deathScipio – refused demands to become perpetual consul or dictator (and thus represented what Caesar should have done in the eyes of his detractors). At one point, the political class tried to have him brought up on charges but he played on his popularity with the people to get out of that mess.“Alexander does for Asia with the sword what Columbus does for America with the compass” - Massacres a whole lot of people and creates a power vacuum?Salt tax – in 1675, riots in Brittany began over the introduction of a variety of taxes. The Revolt of the papier timbré or Revolt of the Red Bonnets was the response to the central government riding roughshod over previous local liberties in order to finance a war abroad. The revolt was heavily repressed, then the king granted an amnesty and some of the offending taxes were removed. In other words, it was a revolt against taxation that had been implemented unfairly, and there was something of a victory for the protesters. (I'm skimming, admittedly, and in French, but I have a feeling Hugo is wishing the whole thing had been something else, not that it flipped about-face in its motives.)

Hébert against Danton isn't a step backward, is it? Why is it the example that culminates the paragraph that states insurrection is forward momentum; anything else is riot? (Is it because this whole chapter is really “anything Hugo likes is insurrection, anything he dislikes is riot”?)

Help me parse this: “Jean sur son rocher, c'est le sphinx sur son piédestal ; on peut ne pas le comprendre ; c'est un juif, et c'est de l'hébreu”. John on his rock is the sphinx on its pedestal; one can *not* understand him; he's a Jew and it's in Hebrew. Right? If one “cannot understand him”, it would be “on ne peut pas le comprendre”. So it's more “it is possible to not understand him”, yes? Making sure I'm reading it right, as I was interpreting the English FMA give - “we cannot understand him” - as “because he's a Jew” and that was setting off my “possible antisemitism” buzzer. But “it is possible for us to not understand him” - “because he's a Jew” - is an entirely different meaning to me, where the “because” is showing a distance that we feel rather than one that is naturally there. Like “we can choose to distance ourselves from him” not “he is other and therefore impossible to understand”. Am I right here? It seems a difficult locution.

Verres – crappy governor of SicilyVitellius – obese glutton of an emperorSulla – (somehow did not get translated in FMA, who used the french spelling) the prototype of the dictator, the excuse Caesar could give for crossing the RubiconClaudius – depravity what? The man came between Caligula and Nero and governed effectively. He had bad luck with women, but nothing he himself did could count as depravity in any sense.Domitian – described by Suetonius as a cruel and paranoid tyrant, and had some morality police pretensions. I have no idea what Hugo is talking about with Claudius and Domitian.Caracalla – here we go, massacres – that's more like it.Commodus – liked to fight exotic animals in the gladitorial arenaHeliogabalus – disregard for religious traditions and sexual mores, “unspeakably disgusting life”

Hugo would do better to say that insurrection relies on a moral fact to sustain itself, whether or not it sprang from material circumstances.

Masaniello – possibly came to mind as an example due to the 1828 opera about him, libretto by Delavigne and Scribe. Not really seeing a moral difference here, to be perfectly honest, though that's probably because I cannot believe Spartacus as some perfect avatar of disinterested slave rebellion.

And does any armed battle not leave the deaths of old men, women, and children in its wake? He admits it, almost, but is still in favour of insurrection. And still isn't explaining the difference by any test other than “it's what I think is right”. And then he proves it by deeming 1832 an insurrection, even though he admits that on its face, it's a riot. Because he likes it, dammit!

Chapter 3Ludwig Snyder did exist, assuming this copy of the death notice is legit. (113? Wow. And his wife apparently lived to 105.)

The details on preparations are another example of Hugo using potentially dubious details to make his work seem accurate. These details piled up on each other pretend to accuracy, but they could come from anywhere – 1848, 1834, Hugo's imagination. They flow into something that may or may not be utter crap (what's an 80 year old German-American, a gunsmith who never missed a presidential election, doing in Paris at the time?) mixed in with what is almost certainly a real testimony of what happened on 5 June.

The Société des Amis du Peuple (SAP) was a major left-wing group. Hugo's invocation of them lends credence to everything he says, regardless of their true involvement this time around. The SAP had been officially dissolved in early 1832 after the trial of their fifteen leaders, including Auguste Blanqui, but the remnants continued unofficially.

Chapter 5“For two years, Paris had seen more than one insurrection.” Depending on how Hugo is counting, this phrasing is an understatement. Timeline of France under the July Monarchy (French only). October 1830, February 1831, March 1831 (two separate days of rioting about a week apart), June 1831, September 1831. That's just rioting and insurrection in Paris – then you've also got the Lyon revolt in November 1831, and you've also got multiple plots, legitimist and republican, coming up and getting shut down over these two years.

The picture that is built up is not in the least particular to June 1832 – it could be June 1848, really, which says a lot about political violence in Paris. It's all the same since the barricades first went up in 1827: the barricades, the gathering of troops, the collection of arms, the shut-down of sectors of the city, the tourists and rubberneckers, the crowded prisons as the police start arresting anyone, and everyone just waiting for the fallout rather than the event itself. There's a sense of suspense, but it's also so completely repetitive that it doesn't matter that Hugo is recycling stories from multiple uprisings. A Paris revolt is a species of its own, and a description of one event adds to the description of all such events.

And if you don't know the novel, you're probably not all that certain about who's gonna die, even if you know Parisian revolts. Things happen behind the barricades, then some people manage to escape, some are killed in action, some are executed right there, and some end up in prison. There are four fates for any participant, and any of them could happen to our characters and still feel cliché because there are only four fates and Parisian revolts just keep happening without any change in form.

If you're new to Parisian revolt, it's probably a lot more suspenseful. I suspect a middle-aged European reader – a veteran of 1848 regardless of country – has a different feeling at the end of this book than an American or British reader would have had. (yeah, the Americans are in the middle of a war, but there's a huge difference between a war and a city riot that turns into a revolution – we don't do urban warfare in the US.)

What kind of literature and what kind of life is the same question. - Tom Stoppard